


keep you inside my lungs

by pendules



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-27
Updated: 2015-06-27
Packaged: 2018-04-06 09:36:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4216710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pendules/pseuds/pendules
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>You don't know if you want to be him or if you want to fuck him or if you want to love him.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>All you know is: you're going to kill him.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	keep you inside my lungs

**Author's Note:**

> Oh god, I'm sorry for this???
> 
> The ~official theme song of this fic is [_Wolves Without Teeth_ by Of Monsters And Men](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAI5GSyXMjA).

It's a strange place to be. A place that was never yours. A place next to him.

You're supposed to hate him. Everything in your life tells you to hate him. Maybe sometimes you do.

You don't know if you want to be him or if you want to fuck him or if you want to love him.

All you know is: you're going to kill him.

*

You stare at him a lot the first couple months. Because you can. Because he's there. Because you're still not quite sure if he's real.

He doesn't seem to notice. 

You stare at his mouth while he talks and talks and it could probably talk you into anything, make you believe anything.

You stare at his eyes while they're concentrating on maps or books, when they're puzzling over some old mystery, when they're lighting up with some new revelation. 

He looks at you like that sometimes, like you're some kind of marvel. Like he doesn't think you're real either.

You feel dirty under his gaze, unworthy.

You want to touch him sometimes, with a headiness that's both shameful and surprising. 

You didn't know it was in you to want something else this badly, something that's not just escaping from the trap of this town and your parents' trailer and your own skin and becoming someone else.

But maybe being allowed to touch Richard Gansey III means becoming someone else too.

*

Ronan's an asshole to you for a while. But you figure he's an asshole to most people, even his friends. Mostly, he just avoids you. Mostly, you don't care. It seems to leave a strain inside Gansey though. Like it doesn't fit into the neat, little vision of his life in Henrietta. Like he wants things to be simple and clear.

Ronan's easier to understand than he thinks, though. You figure out that he's probably not into girls early on. You don't know if Gansey knows (or if he knows and doesn't care). It's not about that, though. That's not what they have. Gansey will never see him like that. He's jealous of you, but you're not jealous of him.

You're jealous of - the glasses which rest on his nose that he unconsciously touches when he's reading; the mint leaves he places on his tongue; shiny pens he holds elegantly between his manicured, aristocratic fingers; his journal that contains the story of him, that he handles with reverence; his model of Henrietta that he puts together carefully, lovingly, the way you will never think of the place you were born; the Pig which he prizes above all his possessions, which smells like him, or vice versa, there isn't a distinction anymore; Monmouth because he lives inside of it and fills it up with pieces of himself.

You're never going to be one of his things. Your pride won't allow it. But you feel a pang of disappointment every time you remember.

Ronan calls you "Gansey's new boyfriend" once and it's mocking and bitter. Like you're disposable; like he's going to move on and find a new town and a new kid to seduce into his magical quest. You feel like the breath's been knocked out of you for a moment. And you know it's what he intended.

And oh, maybe you're just as easy to read after all.

You're not supposed to need anyone like this. You're not supposed to expose yourself to weakness like this. There's no room for it in your life.

There's no room for _him_. But you get into his car again, and you smile at him, share a fist-bump, and try to make this be enough.

*

Blue is everything Gansey's not.

Blue is another world.

Another world where you can still be you and be allowed to look at and touch beautiful things.

Gansey looks at your intertwined hands with an expression you've never seen on his face.

Something clenches in your stomach, a feeling you've managed to repress but not kill, but you ignore it, you ignore him, the way you never have been able to before.

You hold her hand tighter; you look away from him.

*

It's like someone's torn your insides to shreds. You want to throw up and you want to scream and you want to fall to your knees in front of him and beg for forgiveness. 

You know it's real, you know it's going to be real, with every cell in your body.

He's not going to leave you like you feared months ago (like you still do). You're not going to leave him behind when you leave this place like you promised yourself years and years ago.

He's never leaving this place. He's going to die here, and rot here, and return to the earth, and become a part of Henrietta, become a permanent part of the place you hate and the place he loves.

You're going to have his blood on your hands for the rest of your life.

Maybe that's the only touch you'll ever get.

*

You want to save him; you want him to look at you like he used to; you don't want his pity; you don't want him to save _you_.

In the end, he doesn't.

He's someone else, someone you hate with everything you have, in that moment. He never wanted to own you, but now he's relishing in it. Because he can. Because you have no other choice now.

You hate him, you hate him, you hate him.

But you get into his car again, and he doesn't look at you, and neither of you say anything, and none of it's enough anymore.

*

He can't own you anymore. You belong to something else now. 

You're someone else now.

Maybe you _can_ save him; Cabeswater will lead you to Glendower who will grant you a favour.

If it's your fault, you can undo it.

*

You reach his tomb on your own. You don't have a lot of time. He must have followed you. You don't know where the others are.

You have to do this on your own or not at all.

It takes some effort, but you manage to slide the stone coffin lid off inch by inch.

And then you see him.

*

He's in the forest and he's dying at your feet. He came after you, like he always comes after you. You're not going to let him follow you this time, though.

You kneel beside him; you cradle his head in your arms.

You kiss him, for the first time, for the last time.

You whisper what Glendower had said to you. _A life for a life._

He says, _Adam._ He says, _No._ But he can't stop you. It's too late.

*

You give yourself completely, to the water, to the forest, to the energy of the line.

It doesn't hurt as you sink deeper and deeper; you don't resist, you just let it fill up your lungs.

You can feel when the life leaves you; you can feel when it returns to him.

There's going to be a part of you inside him as long as he lives.

When he dies, you'll both return to the earth together.

You'll be the same; you won't be Richard Gansey III and Adam Parrish; you'll be something else; you'll be something bigger and more powerful and inextricably bound. You'll belong to each other.

For now, you love him. For now, it's enough.


End file.
